In writing, IN JAKE’S SHOES, I experienced my own eye and heart-opening journey, as I explored the everyday trials and tribulations of parents and children learning to “walk in each other’s shoes.”

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After a controversial move to a new town, a father and his young son develop a strained relationship that lasts through the son’s high school years. When the son is killed during a brief deployment as a Mortuary Affairs Specialist in Afghanistan, the father realizes he has lost his chance for a reconciliation. After the funeral, on Christmas Eve, the father sneaks away into the attic to escape a family and friends gathering.  While there, he discovers a notebook of secret letters his son wrote during those difficult years. For several hours, in the cold attic―while his wife and their three daughters search frantically in the house and throughout the neighborhood―the father reads them and discovers a son he never knew.